VI 



ON THE BORDER TERRITORY BETWEEN 

 THE ANIMAL AND THE VEGETABLE 

 KINGDOMS 



[1876] 



In the whole history of science there is nothing 

 more remarkable than the rapidity of the growth 

 of biological knowledge within the last half- 

 century, and the extent of the modification which 

 has thereby been effected in some of the funda- 

 mental conceptions of the naturalist. 



In the second edition of the " Regno Animal," 

 published in 1828, Cuvier devotes a special section 

 to the " Division of Organised Beings into Animals 

 and Vegetables," in w^hich the question is treated 

 with that comprehensiveness of knowledge and 

 clear critical judgTiient which characterise his 

 writings, and justify us in regarding them as re- 

 presentative expressions of the most extensive, 

 if not the profoundest, knowledge of his time. 

 He tells us that living beings have been sub- 



